I was driving through this town yesterday and saw these charging stations not bright enough to take a photo so looked up to see if there were any articles.
For those who don't know much about Miriam Vale it is a town about two hours south of Rockhampton and sits on the main highway (Bruce) between Brisbane and Cairns. It has a population of only 500 people.
I couldn't help myself, there was a driver standing by a Kona who I decided to stop and have a chat with.
They were stopping to have a coffee and taking advantage of the charging station before stopping over night in Rockhampton where they would put a full charge in and then looking to recharge at Mackay while taking another break before eventually getting to the Whitsundays.
He did say that they put some planning in to knowing where the stations are so as to not get into any trouble but otherwise he is really happy with the car as a whole.
The drawbacks I see are.
On an ICE car you can, at a stretch drive from the Whitsundays to Brisbane in one fill at Rocky and then on to Brisbane which requires really economical driving or two fills to do it easily and fill in less than 10 minutes.
This bloke did 3 charges from Miriam Vale to the Whitsundays plus whatever he did before Miriam Vale. Also his charge at Miriam Vale was going to be 20 to 30 mins which he was quite happy to do ( he was in no hurry ). He was being overly cautious so I suppose he could have taken out the Miriam Vale stop if he wanted to.
The point is that the industry is in it's infancy but here we are already with a bloke driving these huge distances that European countries will never see and doing it with joy and ease.
All I think that is needed is to get the average electric to have a safe driving distance of 500 k's and a recharge time under 15 minutes and these things will take off and of course price.
Surely if a small town like Miriam Vale can see the upside then the rest of Australia can too.
I always go back to the Field of Dreams quote,
“If you build it; he will come.” Well if you continue building this everyone will come and sooner than you think. Let the Tsunami roll on.
https://www.gladstoneobserver.com.a...le-recharge-powers-up-at-miriam-vale/3297135/
